How Kendrick Lifted Us Up in 2024

This week, as we near the end of 2024, the writers and editors of KQED Arts & Culture are reflecting on One Beautiful Thing from the year.

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t’s just after 11 a.m. on Nov. 25, and inside Little Caesars I hear an employee standing next to the oven in the back, screaming, “MUSTARRRRRRRD!”

At the register, my 8-year-old daughter is next to me, hungry and confused. I smile and say softly, “It’s happening.”

She doesn’t understand. What does mustard have to do with pizza? What’s happening? Why is my dad smiling?

Maybe it’s too much for her to understand, but I’m sure you will. The sound of a low-wage hourly employee, working at a billion-dollar food chain, momentarily liberating themselves by bellowing lyrics from the top rapper in the game.

That’s a beautiful thing.

It’s art, it’s culture, it’s the reason hip-hop was created. It’s a taste of self-determination over the thunderous drums of the day-to-day struggle. It’s the sound of freedom, however fleeting.

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The roar of “MUSTARD!!!” comes from “tv off,” a standout track on Kendrick Lamar’s latest album, GNX. Partway through the song, the beat switches to a menacing tempo, and Kendrick shouts producer DJ Mustard’s name in such a tone that he etches it directly into the listener’s central nervous system — causing the word to sporadically spring from a person’s throat at a later date, even when the song isn’t playing.

The pizza-making homie was joking on the job, referencing popular culture, but for me it could’ve just as well been a call to an Orisha. His guttural utterance brought one very beautiful thing to mind about this past year: the culture is alive and well.

West Coast hip-hop is currently abuzz, and Kendrick is at the top of the pack. After emerging as the clear winner of an epic rap battle against Canadian rapper Drake, which brought arguably the song of the year “Not Like Us,” on Juneteenth Kendrick Lamar hosted The Pop Out: Ken & Friends, a one-day festival featuring a host of artists from the greater Los Angeles area under the bright lights at The Forum. With narration from the Bay Area’s ambassador E-40, the show was an authentic display of unity and regional talent, livestreamed to the masses. Weeks later, Kendrick was announced as next year’s Super Bowl halftime headliner.

All told, 2024 was an immaculate year for the Pulitzer-Prize winning rapper, who I’ve followed since I was downloading his early mixtapes from DatPiff in my college dorm during President Obama’s first term. Kendrick is an artist I’ve only seen once in concert — at The New Parish in Oakland, in 2011 — and yet I identify with his story. We’re both short kids from California, born in 1987 and raised on Tupac. I too am from a “mad city,” but I wasn’t in the game, just game-adjacent.

And I’m just one of many who can relate. That widespread ability to identify with Kendrick’s story means that this year’s success wasn’t just Kendrick’s. His rise is intertwined with a culture, a coast, a class of people. His listeners are a generation of folks who know what it’s like to sing songs that make ’em feel like a million bucks, despite the economic chasm between the pursuit and the happiness growing, exponentially.

Since I first heard his song “Heaven & Hell” during the blog era, I’ve watched K. Dot’s influence grow. Parallel to his tale is my ever-increasing interest in West Coast hip-hop. Last year, I worked with my colleagues at KQED to produce That’s My Word, a multimedia project inspired by hip-hop’s 50th anniversary, for which we unearthed some of the deepest, dopest parts of the Bay Area’s contributions to hip-hop.

After spending a year blowing dust off classic albums and talking to folks about hip-hop history, this year was about understanding the current wave, starting with the Bay and expanding out from there.

Over the past year I’ve written about Larry June’s free concert at Stanford University (good job), and the rise in popularity of San Francisco’s battle rapping-comedic-bar spitter Frak (who is also a person). I wrote about being uplifted by the Black Love album from Oakland’s Kingmakers Music, and noted my nostalgia as I covered Oakland’s rising star Paris Nights and her ability to remake classic music videos and films. Berkeley’s LOE Gino told me about bringing his authentic Birkenstock-wearing self into his raps, and San Francisco’s Lil MC shared insight on carving out a safe space for women and queer MCs in the Bay.

In East Side San Jose, I talked to a handful of artists who simply want to make sure their culture isn’t overshadowed by the tech scions of Silicon Valley, so they make music about their side of town. Authentic artistic expression, despite the big banks down in the shark tank.

But what’s been published is just a small sample of what I’ve absorbed. This past summer I took in a LaRussell show at the Pergola in Vallejo, and hit History of the Bay Day in San Francisco. I drove all around the Bay listening to new music from Stockton’s EBK Jaaybo, Oakland’s Kamaiyah and San Francisco’s Lil Bean.

My playlists have a bunch of new music from Southern Californian talent too, like 03 Greedo and Vince Staples, as well as Big Sad 1900, BlueBucksClan, Buddy, Blu and even new music from Dre & Snoop. Kendrick’s former label mates Ab-Soul and ScHoolboy Q both dropped projects that should be in the conversation for album of the year, right next to Tyler, The Creator’s.

I knew West Coast hip-hop was active before I entered the pizza place on that November day, but the significance of its influence wasn’t clear until after I left.

That same morning, Kendrick Lamar released the video for the song “squabble up,” the first single from his latest album. Saturated with cultural references, the video shows a Black Panther statuette and a painting of Black Jesus; a Pan-African flag, visuals inspired by Ice T’s Power album cover and a reference to a character from 1993 film Menace II Society. There’s also a scraper bike and a few turf dancers, nods to the hyphy movement, a topic I spent the bulk of last year untangling in a very personal podcast series “Hyphy Kids Got Trauma,” about my coming of age and the commodification of my culture.

Kendrick Lamar’s latest music video, the album itself and the many threads that flow through his art speak to what I see as four generations of existence. He honors those who’ve passed on, shouts out the elders who made it happen, checks in with peers and provides space for the next generation. Culture is passed along.

The dances, the fashion, the slang and the teachings over dope beats — it’s all so simple, and yet so spiritual. It’s from the dirt and the have-nots, often shared across the internet and sold online.

And as the big business of Amazon, Spotify, Apple, Cash App, Ticketmaster and others rake in the dough, a pizza-maker reminds me that culture is still free.